


Mourning Frost

by vanishedSchism



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 103 - Freeform, Trans Vax'ildan, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishedSchism/pseuds/vanishedSchism
Summary: Vax closed his eyes, shutting out her piercing gaze and giving himself the briefest of moments to collect himself. He focused on one of those ghostly feelings, not the fear, fear had only ever driven him to stupidity, not the discomfort, which was too broad to use as a focus even if he wanted to, but the hurt, that his god would separate him and his sister, that she would require him to prove himself in this way, after dying in front of a rising god, that was something he could use.He rolled his shoulders back, lifted his chin and allowed himself the compromise of his arms crossed over his exposed chest. He was still uncomfortable, still defensive, but he could work with this. At least he knew how things stood.I was having a lot of Trans Feels™ for Vax while watching episode 103, so here’s a fic about that.





	Mourning Frost

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a play on words from the Mountain Goats' ["Cry for Judas"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grT3CXRd5-Q)

Vax had thought quite a lot about death. 

He had to, because of his god, but even before that it had always been a consideration. Death was the end. Sure, there was an afterlife, he'd seen too much to believe otherwise, but what use was an afterlife if you were separated from the only people you cared about? 

Vex had always thought they'd see their mother when they died. She'd lose something, of course, but one family for another wasn't so bad of a trade. Vax would be with her of course, that was never a question. Even if she died first (she wouldn't, he always told her so, he did everything in his power to prevent it) they would see each other again. 

Vax was less optimistic. Life didn't grant miracles, so why would death be any different? Their mother would be long gone by the time he and his sister finally left this mortal coil. Death meant leaving the people you love, anything else was irrelevant detail. 

So he wasn't surprised to find himself naked and alone in the dark nothingness of death. 

There wasn't a lot of feeling in this place. It was nice in a way. As was so often the case with these things, Vax hadn't realized how much he felt until those feelings were gone. The feeling that they were doomed, that crushing certainty that glazed his eyes and bowed his back, it was all gone. There was no worry, no exhaustion, no creeping worry trying to eat through his insides or twitching fingers or feeling of _wrongness_ not within him. 

It was nice, that freedom from feeling. Empty, but hadn't he been searching for emptiness? All those nights alone, staring at the stars, at the streets, at the members of the Clasp darting from shadow to shadow? He had always felt too much, he was always looking for a way to not. 

But he wasn't completely empty here. There was something tethering him to the ground, a heavy sort of heat in the middle of his chest, right where his heart was, that kept him from floating, or maybe it was sinking, into the cold darkness. 

_Vex._

His sister wasn't here. 

That realization weighed him down, pulled on his soul until his feet were pointing down and he began to _drop_ and as he dropped he began to feel. By the time the platform, the hand, the _Raven Queen_ rose up to meet him, he was afraid again, more afraid than he had ever been before. Was this where it ended? Was this where he finally lost Vex?

He squashed down the panic he felt at that thought, forcing it out of his throat and chest, forcing it down through his body to weigh his feet to the Raven Queen's hand. 

His god was inscrutable and infuriatingly still behind her ebony mask and Vax was suddenly _very_ conscious of his nakedness. She didn't move as he shifted under her gaze, fighting the urge to curl up and hide as much of himself as possible. You had to be open with your god, but the Raven Queen knew that she did not command the same sort of awe for Vax that Serenrae did for Pike. Their relationship was based on respect, his for her and her for her champion. 

Now she was showing him that the respect she gave was conditional, it had to be earned, but more than that it had to be maintained. Vax closed his eyes, shutting out her piercing gaze and giving himself the briefest of moments to collect himself. He focused on one of those ghostly feelings, not the fear, fear had only ever driven him to stupidity, not the discomfort, which was too broad to use as a focus even if he wanted to, but the hurt, that his god would separate him and his sister, that she would require him to prove himself in this way, after dying in front of a rising god, that was something he could use. 

He rolled his shoulders back, lifted his chin and allowed himself the compromise of his arms crossed over his exposed chest. He was still uncomfortable, still defensive, but he could work with this. At least he knew how things stood. 

He waited for his god to speak first, ready for the rebuke, the disappointment, the demand to know what had happened. 

Instead, her voice was soft, it was warm and its words, a single word, nearly knocked him off of his feet.

"Vax'ildan."

The shock ran through Vax like a lightning bolt and for a few seconds, or maybe hours, or maybe years, all those feelings inside him jumbled up and the world shook before his eyes and he couldn't connect any thoughts together except _that's my name, she said my name_ and then the Raven Queen removed her mask. 

A vulnerability for a vulnerability. 

An understanding for an understanding. 

She called him champion when she asked him to explain what happened. She inquired about Vecna and he tried to convince her to care. He didn't have information for her, he didn't know Vecna's plans, but he tried to make her care. He tried to play a game that he was good at, a game that had only failed him once before, in that room in Emon, when he tried to outwit Silas Briarwood and almost lost himself in the process. He should have known that he couldn't outwit a god, that the Raven Queen had more important things to do than to listen to a scared and bitter half-elf try to explain why this creature that bested him could really destroy the world.

She questioned him of course, the Raven Queen was not one who liked to leave loose threads, but she offered nothing in return. 

She asked why it matters so much, why he doesn't just rest now that he has the chance. 

_My sister died for this!_ he yelled, or he thought he did, her questions were as much within his mind as within this space and he's losing the difference between saying and feeling and thinking. 

_Your sister lives_.

What? That couldn't be, he saw her die. He wasn't able to look away as she fell to the floor, the life already gone from her eyes. 

Vax could once again feel the floor against his cheek, the Delilah's boot on his chest, the cold wind over his body

 _She was brought back after you fell._ The Raven Queen assured him, gently directing him away from the memory. Her fingers rested on the nape of his neck, surprisingly warm against his clammy skin. 

_Your friends escaped. Your family is still there._

Nothing mattered after that. The meaningless platitudes, the impossible plans, the purrs of _my champion_. All that mattered was that Vax gets back, that Vax doesn't leave his friends in this mess he helped create, that he doesn't leave his family.

 _Do you want to join them?_ she asked.

_Yes I'd do anything._

_Then you will give everything. And when you are done, you will come back to me, my champion._

Her hand in his hair and her finger on his chin kept him anchored in his physical form, though he wasn't quite sure when they came to be there. The message was clear though, this was a gift, and every gift had a cost. If he went back it was for one purpose and one purpose only, to end Vecna. Everything else was secondary. For the first time in his life, his existence, Vex was secondary. 

He nodded slowly, meeting the Raven Queen's dark eyes, holding onto his resolve so he didn't fall into their yawning depths. 

_If that's what it takes._

She nodded and her hands moved to cup his cheeks and she looked at him in that way Vex'ahlia did when she was worried about him. He tried to shy away but she held him firmly. She pulled his face toward her, expression once again unreadable, and spoke, her voice echoing through Vax's head. 

"Wake up." 

And Vax did. 

He opened his eyes and he was surrounded by unfamiliar trees. Trees that swayed and spun and it took Vax at least minute to realize that _he_ was the one moving, not the trees. Dying, it turned out, was hell on your internal balance. 

He let himself sag against one of the trees unsure where to proceed from here. He wasn't in Thar Ampala anymore, he was sure of that at least. But then where was he? 

He almost thought that he was in the forest surrounding Syngorn, coming back to life in the place he reluctantly called his home seemed poetic and messed up enough that the Raven Queen might do that to him, but the trees here were too short and twisted to be from Syngorn. 

"Not Snygorn" was an unhelpfully broad category and though Vax felt the need to find his sister like a heavy weight in his chest, he felt as if he was trying to move through molasses. His arm didn't respond until seconds after he told it to move and his legs felt clumsy and unused to his weight. 

He stumbled forward, wincing as twigs and sticks snapped under his bare feet. He stopped, not trusting himself to move forward until he regained some sense of himself. 

In the meantime he had a moment to think, a gift that he probably shouldn't take lightly. 

His sister was alive. Vex had been brought back without him needing to pledge his life for her. For once, their deaths were entirely unconnected. And if Pike was able to bring back Vex, that meant she must be okay too. Probably along with the rest of Vox Machina. 

They were alive, safe, or as safe as you can get when you're defying an almost god, and he was alive, or as alive as you could get when you're wandering naked through unfamiliar woods after having been brought back by the god of death. 

He wished he had a cloak. 

He wanted to step into the shadows and just disappear for a while, but he didn't trust himself to move without attracting even more attention so he settled for crossing his arms in front of his chest and hunching forward. 

Except...

His chest was smooth. The raised scars he'd gotten so used to were completely gone and in their place was a flat chest. He ran his fingers over the muscles, sure that he must be missing something, that someone had cast seeming or an illusion or something but his fingers told him what his eyes could not, the scars were gone. 

In their place was a raven, its wings spread out across his chest and over his ribs, leaving no doubt as to who had given him this. 

He was interrupted by the sound of metal scraping against bark and he dropped his hands and looked up at the tree in front of him. 

A small gnome, trying to be stealthy in armor that clanged and shone in the dim light clung to the boughs of the tree. 

Vax felt his throat close up as he was suddenly overwhelmed with feeling, with gratitude, happiness, a sense of home, as he stared at Pike.

"Hi." 

"Stringbean?" she asked. 

"Yes," he said, his voice about to break. "Where are we?"

"The fey wild." 

Vax looked around. It didn't look at all familiar, but he believed her. Did that mean he was really back? That the Raven Queen had really resurrected him? 

Pike wondered the same. She asked where he'd come from, what happened, why he was here, now, naked in the middle of the forest. 

He answered to the best of his ability but he only had the faintest grasp on what was going on himself. It was easier to just say he didn't know. He _didn't_ know.

"I died," he said. Unsure what else to say. It was important that he tell her... In case. "Did you know that?" 

She nodded. He could see in her face that she knew. Vax had seen death, of course he had. He'd seen it on the streets, with his sister, and he'd seen it within Vox Machina, with Pike, with his sister and Grog and Percy, who of them hadn't crossed the thin line at one point or another? But they had always come back. 

This were different now. As excited as he was about his new body, scarless though it was, Vax knew it hadn't been made to last. His death was different. He always had to be different. 

They were trying to save him, but what was there left to save? 

"Oh fuck." He didn't know what else to say. It was all fucked, wasn't it? They were supposed to be heroes. They were supposed to stand up and fight for everyone who couldn't do it themselves. That resolve had kept him tethered to this world. Had brought him back. 

That resolve hardened when he saw his sister, alive, just appear in front of him. Logically he knew she'd come from the tree but he had thought she was dead, he'd seen her die, even though the Raven Queen assured him she'd be here he thought she was _dead_ and when she backed away and told him he didn't really exist, he didn't know what to do but to run up to her and hold her in his arms. She was real, as solid as he was as he rocked her back and forth and they both babbled about how _you can't be here, are you really here, I saw you die, this must be a trick._

If it was a trick, at least it brought him back to his sister. 

He held her and she held him and they both made sure that the other was real. 

They might have stood there all night, staring into each others' identical faces, identical thoughts crowding and filling their heads, had Pike not walked up and put a hand to Vax's chest, her fingers brushing right over one of the raven's wings. 

Vax knelt down and noticed, at the same time that Vex put her cloak over him, that there was- that he had a dick. Vex must have noticed at the same time, but she just made some sort of crass comment, as unimpressed as if it had been there his entire life, and Pike completely ignored this new development in favor of listening to his chest. 

He looked at Vex, unsure what emotion was showing on his face and to be fair, there was a bit too much going on for him to read her face either, but there was the smallest hint of a smile and Vax let a bit off that giddiness infect him too. 

He had... he'd transitioned. 

He'd thought about it before of course, ever since he was a little kid, though dealing with his breasts had always been a priority, but after that, once the tissue scarred and he could wear leather again, he fantasized about the day he'd have enough money to talk to a wizard or a cleric so that he could fix downstairs. He'd never had enough money before he met Vox Machina, and then as their family bonds grew stronger, so did their problems, by that point there wasn't time. 

He never would have expected the Raven Queen to do it for him. 

He never would have thought that dying would allow him to transition. 

He was caught between elated and embarrassed, even as the fear and concern and bittersweet sadness raged in his head. 

Especially when Vex asked why. 

Especially when Percy was unsatisfied with how. 

He followed Percy's instructions, the words ringing in his ears. _This is what I would do to torture us._

He was right of course. Given the rollercoaster of emotion Vax had felt just from standing here? He couldn't imagine how his family must be feeling. 

That wasn't true. 

He could. 

That was the problem. 

Percy's fear that he was an apparition, and later that he was him but he was somehow being controlled, dug deep into his barely beating heart. 

He'd been controlled before. He'd shoved his daggers into Percy's back. He walked away when everyone else was dissolving in acid. He yearned for the Briarwoods' approval when he thought his friends were dying.

Even as he submitted to their tests, as Pike raised her holy symbol to his face, he couldn't shake the feeling that Percy was right, that he'd brought nothing but more pain and heartbreak by coming back. 

He found himself arguing. He had to argue because he believed him. If anyone could convince him that he was a monster, that he _wasn't_ a monster it was Percy. 

Did his new body mean he wasn't him? This was what how he had always imagined himself, but Percy didn't necessarily know that and even if he did, he was right. When did a miracle just happen? They didn't, miracles always had costs. 

God he didn't want to be a cost. 

He answered their questions. He wished Keyleth would come down and talk to him. He wished Vex would stop looking at him like that. He hoped Keyleth stayed in the tree. 

He looked at his chest, at his body. He was himself, wasn't he? 

He looked up when Keyleth walked toward him. 

"Hi," he said, as she reached out. He clasped her hand in his. 

"I thought I killed you," she said, her voice brimming with tears. 

He almost dropped her hand, shocked. "You?" Did he miss something? Had Delilah controlled her? Did something happen _after_ he and his sister died? 

"I could have done more." 

_Oh._

Vax closed his eyes. Everyone could have done more. Or they could have done less. But if they hadn't attacked, the world would be in ruins, Vecna would be back, Vecna _was_ back. How were they expected to take on a rising god? 

"Nobody could have done more." 

Keyleth looked at him for a long moment, trying to see the truth in his words, it was only truth, then moved on. 

"You're cold," she said. 

She looked at him, at his pale face, his smooth chest, his penis and balls and his bare feet, then put her ear to his chest as if none of that surprised her. She knew his plans, of course he'd told her his plans, but it meant more than he realized that she took the physical changes in stride, that she didn't seem to think he was any less Vax now with them, though she was rightfully concerned about his relative undeadness. 

She thought he was going to die again. 

He'd never even considered that. 

He tried to explain, to tell her, to tell them all, what the Raven Queen told him, did for him, but the words didn't quite come and between the haze then and the fog now he wasn't sure what was real. 

He tried to appeal to Pike, but she didn't understand either, she and Serenrae had a very different relationship. More loving, less businesslike. 

And still Percy's words echoed, when have we ever been given a random miracle? 

But it wasn't without its cost, was it? 

It wasn't until Grog and Scanlan came down, made their own jokes to lighten the tension, showed him his own ashes, that he realized Percy was right. 

Miracles weren't given. 

But he had paid a price for this. 

He would die again, when all this was over, when his family had a chance to live happy lives. He would have to leave them then, have to leave his sister. 

He took a deep breath that he didn't need, exhaustion once again weighing down his shoulders. 

It was a heavy price to pay, that was certain. He would never see Pike's smile again, hear Scanlan's songs, test his luck with Grog. He would not see Keyleth lead her people, or Percy coughing after a misfire or his sister- 

It was a heavy price, but it was worth it. 

He would pay for this miracle. 


End file.
